Talking Aerospace Today – AI in Aerospace Part Three – Summary
The Talking Aerospace Today podcast has recently wrapped up its exploration of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), a critical component for the stages of digital transformation maturity and the future of the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry.
In the latest episode, Todd Tuthill, Vice President of the A&D Industry for Siemens Digital Industries Software, is joined once more by Justin Hodges, technical specialist and product manager for Siemens Simcenter. They use this episode to address issues of trust and security companies may have regarding AI/ML and how companies can overcome these reservations, as well as give some final remarks on the future of AI in the A&D industry.
Building trust
While AI has been receiving a lot of hype across industries recently, a degree of skepticism that accompanies all new technologies surrounds it. There are those who do not know how AI works, and due to the open source aspects that often accompany it, some have raised security concerns surrounding what AI models generate and the data they use to do so. Helping companies build confidence in the technology is therefore paramount if AI is to be integrated into aerospace engineering processes.
Fortunately, Justin identifies three strategies researchers and companies can implement to do just that: increasing explainability, bias reduction, and user education. Increasing explainability involves reducing the black box that hides how AI models work into something more semitransparent, allowing users to better understand how the models make decisions or predictions. Bias reduction works toward to decrease models’ tendencies toward certain predictions that can lead people into the wrong direction. Finally, user education efforts would help users learn how exactly to use AI models to achieve safe, beneficial predictions.
Securing aerospace designs
Though these strategies can alleviate concerns of trust, the A&D industry in particular may still have stronger reservations due to the nature of the products they create. Todd explains how A&D companies are not just concerned about intellectual property, but many aerospace projects on the defense side are also classified and operate under the highest levels of scrutiny. Having AI models that scours the Internet for data to use seems counterintuitive to the confidential nature of these projects.
The solution, Todd suggests, lies in limiting the data AI models would use in their functions to stay within each individual company. Every company would have its own “proprietary data lake” that their AI models would draw from when performing their tasks, such as generating new component designs. Not only would this address concerns of intellectual property leaks between companies and ensure designs stay unique to their company, but it would also create an isolated environment for companies to test their AI models, gradually improving them and increasing their trust in them over time.
The future is here
There is certainly work to be done before AI can be used for advanced purposes such as generating complex designs, but Todd stresses that A&D companies should start investing in AI technology now. There are plenty of tools out there that utilize AI in their processes, as well as resources to educate people in its use. Todd recommends companies invest now so that if they do, they can grow as the tools in the industry grow and gain a significant advantage in the market.
AI/ML is a new and exciting technology that offers to revolutionize the A&D industry. It is natural to distrust such novel technologies, but as history shows, people will learn to trust AI as they did with computers and calculators. Strategies such as increasing model transparency, reducing bias, and educating users, can help greatly in this regard. As time goes on, they can learn to utilize AI to its full potential and realize the later stages of digital transformation maturity, creating a cutting-edge A&D industry for the modern age and bringing a new generation of aircraft and spacecraft into the skies.
Stay tuned for the next episodes of Talking Aerospace Today as the podcast dives into the topic of generative design.
Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organizations of all sizes digitally transform using software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Siemens’ software and the comprehensive digital twin enable companies to optimize their design, engineering and manufacturing processes to turn today’s ideas into the sustainable products of the future. From chips to entire systems, from product to process, across all industries. Siemens Digital Industries Software – Accelerating transformation.
